


The Baxter Building Bicycle

by sabinelagrande



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Genre: Crack, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-23
Updated: 2008-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:28:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not that he means to do these things. They just sort of keep happening to him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baxter Building Bicycle

It's not that he means to do these things. They just sort of keep happening to him.

Of course, when pressed, he would have to acknowledge that the actions he has taken must have some element of volition on his part, but he doesn't really like thinking about that.

Sue, he loves. Knows he loves her, in the desperate, frustrating, unquantifiable (though he's experimented with a number of systems, to some success) way of love, and he can say with a high degree of certainty that she reciprocates his love. If he has to point to proof (he does), she's consented to marry him, despite his many, many flaws; though after the disastrous first viewing, he's never showing her the tracking spreadsheet again. And intercourse with Sue makes him run through every positive metaphor he knows before being forced to admit that there's nothing quite like it.

And he would have been quite happy with that, happy to ignore the biological imperative and millions of years of evolution spurred along by his ancestors inseminating everything in the same genus, with no regard for things like monogamy, consent, or species.

He's rusty on linguistics (he leaves himself a note to correct that problem), but it strikes him that that construction is the kind that only comes with a "but" or an "if" at the end.

But, one night, he and Ben are sitting on the couch, having their pre-scheduled bonding time. Ben is noisily quaffing his third pitcher of beer and expounding upon the subject that he always seems to come back around to these days- namely, Alicia, and the incredible annoyance brought on by certain cosmic ray-induced pre-zygotic barriers.

Reed is certain that it's his devotion to scientific discovery and not his BAC (0.0578) that makes him suggest what he does. And anyway, this is _Ben_, his best friend, at whose request and for whose benefit he would do literally anything in his power. And it's not like Ben's going to hurt him like he could Alicia- on the contrary, the pleasure Reed experiences would be shocking to anyone not intimately familiar with human sexual response.

The second time (this is science, and rigor demands repetition), Ben tells him that Alicia wants to watch. It's really not Reed's fault if Alicia can only effectively "watch" with her hands.

And her mouth.

He does feel somewhat guilty, of course, because even though he has excellent justification for his actions, they still represent a breach of his contract with Sue. Unfortunately, his guilt leads him to extraordinary measures, which lead him to his next mistake.

A few nights later in his lab, he sets an alarm so that he can remember to do something romantic and impulsive, and when it goes off (and after six or seven slaps of the snooze button), he strides, in what is calculated to be a dashing manner, into Sue's bedroom.

Sue is sleeping soundly, her back to the door, her soft blonde hair splayed out on the pillow, only just visible in the dim light from the window. Reed feels, not for the first time, that if luck actually exists, he must have more of it than any other man in the world. He can't resist climbing in next to her, turning her face towards his and kissing her mouth.

"Jesus Christ, what took you so long?" the person in the bed exclaims when he pulls away, and that's when Reed discovers, to his horror, that it's not Sue.

It's Johnny. Johnny, who has recently taken to wearing his hair long and, apparently, passing out in other people's beds. Johnny, who takes this as an invitation for some really enthusiastic coitus. Johnny, who, Reed is certain, is not going to keep his mouth shut (not that Reed is honestly interested in that just yet).

Reed keeps meaning to say no, but it keeps coming out as "Oh God" and "right there" (a very curious phenomenon, which he's afraid he already understands perfectly).

"That was great, bro," Johnny tells him as he pulls his shirt back on, giving him a rather disconcerting kiss on the head. "Any time!" he adds, mercifully taking his leave.

He thinks, for one glorious minute and ten amazing seconds, that he's going to slink away quietly to the shower, that it can be one more thing that Sue never needs to know.

But, of course, Sue chooses the seventy-first second to walk into the bedroom. "Were you waiting for me?" she asks coyly.

What he means to say is, "How was your day?" but what comes out of his mouth is, "I just slept with your brother."

Sue looks at him, blinking. Her mouth falls open in shock, and she regards him wordlessly for a moment. "Really?" she asks, finally, and Reed nods mutely. "Just now?"

"Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds ago," he admits.

"Tell me about it," she says, biting her lip as if she can't believe what she's just said. Reed's eyebrows lift almost to his hairline, because he can't believe it either.

"We were on the bed, approximately," he indicates carefully, "here. Erection was achieved, followed by penetration, plateau, and orgasm, in the expected pattern."

"Reed," Sue says, her voice low and dangerous, as she pulls him close by his collar, "_tell_ me."

"I also slept with Ben," he confesses, since he's on a roll anyway, "but not today."

A faint look of distaste comes over Sue's features. "You can leave that part out."

As she presses him down into the bed, he realizes that not only does luck exist, but he has absolutely all of it.

He'll measure it someday.


End file.
